Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives

NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE ON SCREEN

November 1 – November 7

November 1-7, 2024

Niki de Saint Phalle has been much celebrated over the years: her works are part of numerous major collections, her iconic sculptures grace museums, plazas, and other public spaces around the world, and here in the U.S., major exhibitions recently graced the walls of MoMA PS1 and The Menil Collection in 2021, and at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art this past summer. Saint Phalle was among the most prolific and multi-disciplinary of artists. While her “Nanas” – stylized, riotously colorful, joyous sculptures of the female form – are iconic, she produced extraordinary works in practically every imaginable medium: sculptures, installations, assemblages, architectural constructions and landscapes, works on paper, performances, artist books, and more.

Perhaps the least-recognized aspect of her career is her intersection with the moving image. Saint Phalle was a filmmaker herself, an aspect Anthology helped call attention to in 2019 when, as part of the series “Out of the Shadows”, we screened both her unflinchingly personal exploration of familial trauma, DADDY (1973) (a collaboration with filmmaker Peter Whitehead), and UN RÊVE PLUS LONG QUE LA NUIT (A DREAM LONGER THAN THE NIGHT) (1976), a phantasmagoric feminist fairy tale that was one of the bona fide revelations of the programming we’ve presented in recent memory. Saint Phalle also worked in video, as well as collaborating on various moving-image projects and performance documentation, and appearing as the subject of numerous documentary portraits.

Ever since presenting UN RÊVE PLUS LONG QUE LA NUIT in 2019, we’ve been looking forward to the day when we could showcase this extraordinary film more fully. Thanks to the efforts of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation, the film has now been restored (in its slightly longer, original cut). To celebrate the return of Saint Phalle’s greatest moving-image work, we’re honored to host a week-long revival run of A DREAM, contextualized by a selection of films by, with, and about Niki de Saint Phalle, as well as her longtime partner and collaborator, Jean Tinguely.

The series has been organized in collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation and The Film Desk. Special thanks to Arielle de Saint Phalle; Bloum Cardenas & Jana Nier Mooneyhan (Niki Charitable Art Foundation); Michel Auder; Lilly Carrel, Donna McClendon & Michelle White (The Menil Collection); Francois de Menil; Louise Faure & Anne Julien; Ted Fendt; Konrad Hirsch (Schamoni Film & Medien); Jake Perlin (The Film Desk); Greg Pierce (The Andy Warhol Museum); Fabienne Stephan (Salon 94); Corinna Stürz (Hessischer Rundfunk); and Josefine Ziebell.

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